about buying tambourines

Tonight I did a weird thing -

I bought a plastic tambourine.

I was thinking about something someone said to me a year or two ago that has bothered me since. They said it was obnoxious of me to use the phrase "celebrate" as often as I did.  Apparently I was in the habit of saying things like "We should celebrate tonight!" or "I want to celebrate you" or "This calls for celebration!" I remember them implying that the term was somehow too much, that it shouldn't be flung around, that life was hard and doing things like celebrating was naive or silly of me.

And do you know, I actually took that to heart.

Their words made me feel ridiculous.  I started worrying about my perspective on life, started wondering if everyone around me thought I was a fool.  Was there something as too much celebration? 

A few weeks ago I went to a great conference and one of the speakers started talking about how she is reading through Exodus, which I thought was pretty great because I am as well.  She started talking about the part after the Israelites have crossed the Red Sea, when Moses and his people begin to sing a song of praise and thanks.  She pulled out chapter 15, v 20:

Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing

It's easy enough to skip over that, but the speaker paused there.  "Tambourines", she said.  "Did you ever think about it?  They had to pack those."

They had to pack them.  These women, in their exile from their land, in their fear and uncertainty and hurry - they didn't leave behind the tambourines.  In the midst of everything,  they knew they should always be prepared to celebrate.

Celebrating isn't always easy, because life IS hard.  Today I sat at my desk reading an article about the 200 plus girls who were recently abducted in Nigeria and my bones began to feel heavy and my chest began to ache;  I hate this world sometimes.  I hate its darkness and deceit.  But I love more the victory of the light.

I love more the gifts and grace and goodness from the Lord, and I love them enough to dance in the face of brokenness.  I think we MUST.

I think we must be the type of people who celebrate the breath we take when we wake in the morning.  We must be the type of friends who celebrate each other's talents, who celebrate each other's pressing through difficulties, who celebrate each other's joys and passions and desires.  We must be the type of family members who celebrate one another in our changing and growing.  We must be the type of strangers in this world who celebrate when redemption and resurrection happen, in small ways and in big.  We must.

I haven't always been confident of this, but in this moment I am -- I am a woman who celebrates. And for this I am not sorry.

So that's why, tonight, I went on Amazon and I bought a plastic tambourine.
And you know what?

I'm going to celebrate with that thing all the damn time.